Nature Scotland -A Comment and a Response Update21 02 2024

Blog readers will now see my problem. I responded politely to the person who commented as "lead" of the Nature Scotland team and concentrated on getting one single fact because of the implications; was a fox observed and photographed or filmed attacking and killing a lamb or was it just fox DNA along with dog, human, etc from carcasses just showing that it was a free meal or sniff around?

Four days later no response. To me and any straight thinking person this means that there was no evidence of a fox having killed any lambs so that they are in fact left as a "scapegoat" species with no scientific evidence (rather like badgers and bovine TB).

The other problem is that I have no idea who this person was (normally in such chat a person identifies themselves and gives a job position or whatever) or if he/she was using somebody's name they picked up off a Nature Scotland site. For me this matter is concluded and I wasted enough time. No evidence foxes killed lambs.

Now I have 67 fox post mortem reports to go through and break down data from. Any other comment will be deleted.

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 It's always nice to know someone reads the blog posts but I was somewhat surprised to see this comment re Nature Scotland and its work on lamb predation -foxes, badgers etc.:

"Hi Terry,
I am the team leader for the guys that pulled this work together and am therefore part of what you claim as being “Nature Scotland seems to be run by lack lustre people.” By the way we are NatureScot, anyway I would be really interested in how you have come to this conclusion; please could you enlighten us? My apologies if we have met and that this has led you to your conclusion. If so could you enlighten me.

"Otherwise if you haven’t met any of the team can I suggest that you refrain from making personal comments that you are not competent to make. I can assure you that the team are certainly not lack lustre and will continue to look to build knowledge and open up conversation around predation.

Yours in advancing knowledge and open conversation.
Alastair"

So I responded:

"Well, I would respond properly, however, your blogger profile was only just created (16th February) and there is no information about you so you can claim to be anyone. I could claim to have been on the team. I do not respond to anonymous comments but I shall leave this one up so that people can check back."

No disrespect intended so no offence should be taken but this is the internet and I have been targeted by people using false names before.

As I am currently going through 60 plus fox post mortem reports I cannot spend time chasing after people to find out who they are. Name and occupation seems a common must when criticising someone. 

"Lacklustre" was insulting? I have been a naturalist since 1976 and the names I have been called in that time would make your hair curl. That's aside from the threats of "shotguns make a terrible mess of a face".  Lacklustre would make me ask "What didn't I do right?"  In fact I wrote "Nature Scotland"  not "this team" 

The whole point of my post was that, as far as I can see, none of those involved saw a fox or a badger predate a lamb and I think it makes clear that badgers don't. However, it seemed to leave the question of fox predation open and that, at a time of dwindling fox numbers and even wildlife bodies suggesting the species may need to be Red Listed was bad. Two shooter groups have already suggested that this report could lead to "more fox control work".

Maybe the reporting here was bad?  However, as someone who had to look at predated sheep while a UK police forces wildlife consultant (1977-2017) I know that DNA can show what scavenged on a dead animal but you need physical evidence that shows how the animal in question died. In one case we had hedgehog DNA which made the farmer think we were insane when we explained the test results (something went wrong somewhere).

As I pointed out, the whole question of foxes killing lambs is as old as the hills. Maybe in the time of the Old mountain fox it was possible, however, even fox hunters dismissed the idea and as noted their reward for evidence of foxes killing sheep was never claimed.  To leave open the possibility that foxes might be killing lambs in the times we find ourselves in will only encourage more fox killing. We have scapegoated the badger for bTB and to restart the whole "lamb killing foxes" mess is not good.

Badgers exonerated but....

This might be a good time to state that "no evidence was observed of foxes killing lambs" or "We observed foxes killing lambs" simple as that because unless such observations were made then all the DNA testing shows is that foxes, badgers and even dogs sniffed around or had a snack on a dead lamb -as probably did crows. Based on video evidence from a badger sett we 'knew' that every day a badger was killing a wild rabbit -there it was with a dead rabbit dangling from its mouth. It did not seem right for various reasons so we double checked and the camera had been placed not far from a road so actual observation showed the badgers were finding road kill rabbits and scavenging them rather than hunting and killing them.

I really do not care what anyone thinks of me as I do not have that kind of ego. My concern is for conservation of UK wildlife and to make sure facts are given. I have spent 1977 to date studying and researching foxes and other wild canids and that includes going back to 18th century records (books, papers etc). And, yes, I have talked to many farmers over the decades and barring one who gave still born lambs to the local hunt for its hounds, all told me that during lambing season any dead lambs were "Thrown over the hedges"/ "Put on a wall", etc "For the wildlife to dispose of" and the "wildlife" referred to were foxes. 

We do not see the detailed report so base judgements on what is read and on the internet anything left open is taken as 'evidence' for whatever somebody wants.  I wrote “Nature Scotland seems to be run by lack lustre people.” which is what I was asked to explain rather than any part of what was published that I was critical of. If you run Nature Scotland then you are not one of the people I have communicated with in the past that left me with that opinion.

I invite chat and comments with any interested parties but please tell me who you are and if it pertains to research let me know what your function was/is. 

The big question here is were foxes seen to kill lambs and was this photographed/video recorded or are you just saying fox DNA was found on the lambs?